Story: In order to stop the slaughter of his people, the leader of a band of German barbarians (Mihaly) offers himself up as a slave to the Roman Emperor.

Scene OneStarring: Atilla Joma, Kristzian
This scene just baffles me. Here we have Atilla Joma, Emperor of Rome, being pampered by two incredibly handsome and buff slaves... but who does he decide to have sex with? Some pasty-assed, out-of-shape, balding servant boy. Kristzian looks so out of place in this movie, it's not even funny. He just plain doesn't fit in with the rest of these big, buff euro hunks. If you must know, Atilla ends up fucking Kristzian, but it isn't even close to being erotic. Definitely not a good way to start out a movie.

Scene TwoStarring: Anthony, Richard
Well, if you knew what was good for you, you'd have skipped right past scene one, and got ready for scene two, where things get a little more interesting. The first thing you'll notice, is the very nice steam-room/bath-house set. I hope you dig it, because you'll be seeing it an awful lot in this movie. About 5 guys are hanging out here, and 2 start to make out while the other watch and “caress” each other.
Richard is easily my favorite of the two. He's got a nice hairy chest (which seems somewhat uncommon for these Euro flicks) and actually sucks Anthony all the way down to his root! (which is really uncommon in Euro flicks.) After some nice 69ing, Anthony fucks Richard in a few different positions. It's a definite improvement over the first scene, but there's still not a lot of heat here.

Scene ThreeStarring: Mihaly, Gyorgy
Finally we get to see Mihaly in some real action! The Emperor thinks Mihaly needs to brush up on his Latin a bit, and instructs one of his hunky guards (Gyorgy) to show Mihaly the meaning of “Erectus”. Gyorgy has some incredibly sexy facial hair, and a nicely tanned and built body. After some quick oral, Gyorgy fucks Mihaly reverse cowboy, then in spoon position, all while the great Emperor watches. Mihaly certainly seems to being enjoying himself (evident by his raging boner the whole time he's being fucked) but I can't help but think this scene would have been better had Gyorgy bottomed. As hot as Gyorgy is, he just isn't a very convincing top.

Scene FourStarring: Charles, Richard, Attila
Well, the Senators certainly don't like the way Mihaly has been monopolizing the Emperor's time, and come up with a devious plan to murder the Emperor. Of course, a little bit of sex in the steam room is in order, first. This is probably my favorite of the 6 scenes. Charles is the little sex-piggy in the middle of the other two studs, and seems to really get off on having a cock up his ass and another in his mouth.

Scene FiveStarring:Mihaly, Charles, Richard, Lazslo, Miklos
After a failed assassination attempt, Mihaly punishes the senators in the steam bath (yes, that's right, we're going back to the steam bath again). Mihaly blows each of the senators to try to convince them how great Rome is. All it takes is a few licks from Mihaly's luscious lips before all the senators are singing the praises of Rome and begging for forgiveness. Eventually, the group breaks off into two, Mihaly fucks Miklos, and Richard fucks Charles (which is strange since we saw those two have sex in the previous scene).

Scene SixStarring: Attila Joma, Kristzian
So since the Emperor's slave (Mihaly) saved him from an assassination attempt, you would think that the Emperor would reward him with some hot man lovin', right? Well, I sure would have thought so. Instead, we're treated to another scene of the Emperor doing the pasty-assed servant again. Now, if I didn't enjoy watching this before, why on earth would I want to sit through the exact same scene (on the same set, even) again?

Audio/Visual Quality
So here's my main beef with SwordMaster:
Someone severely overdosed on the whole “artsy-fartsy” aspect of the film. Ok, I recognize that a lot of these scenes take place in a steam bath, so a little bit of steam should be expected. But from the looks of it, someone turned on the smoke machine, and then took a lunch break or something. There's way too much smoke obstructing the action.

As if that wasn't enough, the movie seems to have been shot with some kind of “hazey” filter, that makes the whole movie look like it's supposed to be a dream or something. Everything has a slight glow to it, that just plain looks unnatural. Then you have your moments of slow-motion, strobey-slow motion, and annoying black and white segments.

Extras
There's a truckload of language options in SwordMaster. The dialog is translated into a bunch of different languages, as are the subtitles. I would have been happy with just listening to whatever native language these guys were speaking with English subtitles (sadly, that isn't an option).

Other than that, there are some cast bios, a slideshow, and trailers for SwordMaster and Gambler's Delight.

Final Word
As Private's first stab at making gay porn, SwordMaster isn't that bad. And I certainly do appreciate them bringing a video full of euro-hunks in for such a bargain (SwordMaster can be found for a little over $20, compared to most euro-flicks, which go for upwards of $50). There are six scenes, but the first and last scenes don't really count (the fact that Kristzian even made it into this movie, much less into 2 scenes, makes me wonder what kind of thinking is going on over there in Private-land).

If you've watched any amount of euro-porn, many of the hunks in SwordMaster will look very familiar. Most of these guys have shown up in a number of other flicks for other studios (under different names). So if you're a veteran of euro-porn, then you should have a pretty good idea of what to expect.

In the end, SwordMaster movie has the same problems so many of the other movies coming out of Eastern Europe do: Hot guys, but cold sex. I need to see guys rimming, deepthroating, fucking asses balls-deep, and for God's sake, they need to look like they're enjoying themselves. As hot as these guys are, the really come off as little prima donnas. And trust me, there's no amount of smoke or fancy filters that can hide that.

The opinions expressed in this review of Private Man 1: Sword Master from Private Man are not necessarily the opinions of Adult DVD Talk. Adult DVD Talk provides a public forum for consumers to post their DVD reviews. Adult DVD Talk does not edit these reviews.